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PureDWTS Season 29, Week 10 – Power Rankings

I apologize for the atrocious lateness of these rankings – while I’ve been working remote at my 9-5 since mid-March, I actually had to go into my office this week for what’s called an “action workout”; for those not familiar with lean production practices, it’s basically utilizing employees as a sort of think tank to solve in-house problems. The problem being addressed: how we’re going to free up 25K sq feet of space for a new production line in our roughly 75K sq foot building. The upside? I am now going to be working remote permanently, owing to the fact that they need to annex quite a bit of office space on site 😉 The downside? A week’s worth of long, contentious discussions, me pretending to know how to work in CAD, countless Powerpoint presentations, and one very sh*tty cardboard and styrofoam 3D model 😛 But it was totally worth it for the knowledge that I won’t have a morning commute, I won’t have to get all dressed up every morning, I will have a lot more flexibility in my schedule, and when I scream into the void in frustration, nobody will complain (except maybe the dog and the cat) 🙂 Has anyone else’s employer had a peculiar change of heart about remote work since the pandemic hit? A colleague asked my boss back in January (before anyone was really taking COVID seriously) if she could work a few days per week from home, and he said (with a straight face) “No, we need you here, it’s impossible for your job to be done remotely!!!” Fast forward to March 16, when we all got pulled into a conference room and were told that any of us that had the means to do so should start working from home immediately due to COVID, but we should be cleared to return to the office by June; June comes and goes, and in July we’re told that we won’t be coming back to the office before October (at the earliest).  Then 2 weeks ago, suddenly the discussion turned to “So, how would you feel about working from home permanently? You’re cool with it? AWESOME! When can you come clean out your desk??? The subcontractors will be here Monday to start planning out the remodel!” Amazing how it took a pandemic to make my very old-fashioned employer see that working remote can be beneficial to both employer and employee. Read more..

November 21, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 9 – Power Rankings

Soooo…I can’t be the only one who went “Whoomp…there it is!” when they heard about Gleb’s divorce over the weekend 😛 It would not shock me to see Chrishell & Gleb getting papped together at some point in the near future, and I’m wondering if that’s part of the reason the show kept them around so long this season – perhaps the fleeting hope that they might get the chance to go public with a showmance? Who knows. Gleb’s divorce clearly wasn’t the biggest news this weekend, but I got a chuckle nonetheless 😉

So the face-offs went about like they have every other season: each face-off seemed to have one couple that went for technique while the other went for performance. And like most other seasons, the judges seemed to reward their points to the couple that needed them more (with the exception of whichever couple they were trying to oust – in this case, Nelly & Daniella). Also found it interesting that they seemed to make the celeb’s face-off costumes to match their first dances – not sure if this was done as a cost-saving measure or a time-saving one (or both), but I don’t know that we’ve seen anything like that before. Just curious.

In a move I don’t think most of us saw coming quite this soon, we lost AJ and Cheryl – a couple that many of us had predicted would win this season in our preseason poll. I think they were unfortunately just a sacrificial lamb – Nelly seemed to be the intended target for elimination this week, but when it became clear that he wasn’t going anywhere (and dancers that belong in the finale were falling into the bottom 2), the judges had to pivot; AJ just happened to have a bad day at the office when his Viennese waltz went off the rails, so I think he was the only logical choice. I’ll admit that I found myself a skosh disappointed with AJ this season – maybe my expectations were too high, maybe he just didn’t get the right choreo, maybe he got screwed with song and dance assignments, who knows. But I guess I just thought he would be someone who easily bested Nick Carter’s often-erratic performances, and instead I think he ended up only slightly better than Nick when you netted out all of his dances. Read more..

November 11, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 8 – Power Rankings

Generally, it was a pretty “meh” week. I don’t feel like anyone had any huge breakthroughs or astounding performances, and everyone was more or less in a holding pattern from the previous week. Or all the days are running together due to the pandemic, and the sense of impending doom I’m getting from the election is just dulling my senses. Both are equally plausible at this point.

As it usually happens at least once per season, Carrie Ann appointed herself the “critical” judge this week, and seemed to nitpick just about everyone, and Kaitlyn doubly. I feel like she pulls this shit right after she gets called out for giving generally dumb or just unhelpful feedback – in this case, it was her “I wasn’t feeling it” comment in response to Kaitlyn’s paso doble last week, which prompted both Artem and Val to speak up in the media about her lack of helpful feedback. It’s like she gets defensive to the point of having to prove that she’s a serious, tough dance judge with credentials, and ends up just looking petty because of the way she just reeeeeaches for stuff to pick at. It’s a not a good look, but it’s not like we haven’t know for YEARS that Carrie Ann was the least legitimate of the judges. And it did seem like Derek was trying to soften the blow after Carrie Ann went on her rampages – more often than not, he gave reassuring compliments, and was scoring a point or two higher than both Bruno & Carrie Ann. Caught a weird moment immediately after the bottom 2 were called – Derek and Bruno seemed to be gesturing towards one another as if to say “Well what do you think?” before glancing over at Carrie Ann, who seemed engrossed in a bunch of papers she was writing on and ignored them completely. WTF was she doing, filing a tax return??? The scores had long since been logged, not sure what was so important that she felt she needed to write it down before the elim…

Now with Chrishell gone, I don’t think there’s any truly crummy dancers left – which leaves us in an interesting position. One could probably argue that Nelly’s the weakest, but he’s still improving and he also appears to be quite popular, as he has yet to fall into the bottom two despite some harsh scores. On the flip side, both Johnny and Skai have been trending upward with scores in recent weeks, but both have been in the bottom 2 at least once. Then you’ve got Kaitlyn and AJ, who are good but seem to vacillate in a bit in terms of quality; and there’s Justina & Nev, who are consistent but not always super memorable to watch. Add to the mix the fact that we still don’t know how many couples are headed to the finale (I think five is a good number, as it’s the top 1/3 of contestants this season, but who knows), and I can’t really state with confidence who will be there and who won’t. I’d say this made me excited, but anymore, I’m struggling to feel passionate about this show – I’m afraid a lot of the magic died for me with Tom’s departure. Add Tyrant trying to fake cry about Jeannie for attention and I’m damn near changing the channel…ugh.

So we obviously bid farewell to Jeannie – which sucks, because she really was one of the most fun contestants to watch this season, and I loved how she vibed with Brandon.  But I’ve come to learn that one’s health is nothing to trifle with, so I’m glad she caught her ailment at such a crucial point and will likely make a full recovery. If I’m being honest, I had already predicted her as one half of the double elim in last week’s rankings, so I can’t say I’m terribly surprised…although the cause of her elimination is something I definitely wouldn’t have predicted. At the very least, Brandon made it further this season than he ever has before. Then we (finally) shook the dead weight of Chrishell & Gleb loose, which I felt was long overdue. The fact that Gleb had the audacity to pull out the damn bed as a prop FOR A VIENNESE WALTZ had my blood boiling, as did the fact that he once again managed to include the minimum possible number of steps needed to be considered a Viennese waltz and somehow got he and his partner another tongue bath for it. Then there was the suspicious convenience of Carrie Ann NOT calling them out for a lift (after specifically nitpicking Kaitlyn for something similar earlier in the night), and I was downright incredulous by the end of their critique and scoring. Seriously, I wanted to smack all three judges (Derek included) for their gushing.  Why did Chrishell get diplomatic immunity for most of the season??? That’s the real question.  And I think I finally figured out what it was about Chrishell that grated on my nerves: she’s a perpetual victim. I think the only week she didn’t play that card was 80s week, when her package dealt with her being an NKOTB fan. The rest of the time it was “I grew up poor!”, “I got divorced!”, “I had to freeze my eggs!”, “I’m sooooo busy as a real estate agent!” I think of all the other contestants this season, and while everyone had a week or two that was sad, for the most part, their packages all netted out to be generally pretty upbeat and positive. Chrishell’s seemed to be a laundry list of trauma and ways in which her life is hard. I don’t claim to know exactly how her divorce went down, or whose fault it was (as a kid of divorce, I’ve found its usually both spouses’ fault, to some degree), but after seeing her on this season of DWTS, I do think she’s a bit of a bullshit artist and is likely fibbing a bit when she gives the “I was completely blindsided!” line with regards to her divorce. And Gleb…well, y’all know how I feel about him. Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly broken up about it when the judges opted to save Skai & Alan over Chrishell & Gleb 😉 Read more..

November 4, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 7 – Power Rankings

Well, I guess I’m glad they at least mixed things up a bit for Halloween this year – rather than the standard fare of vampires, monsters, ghosts, etc. and horrifically overused songs like the themes from Ghostbusters and The Addams Family, we at least got some new material to work with; the downside of it appeared to be taking some creative license and shoehorning some songs/styles to fit themes. Seems like they had a handful of random songs that they somehow paired (with mixed results) to a list of villains they had cleared, and then picked a dance style that the couple hadn’t done that (sort of) fit the song. I found it somewhat interesting that all but two couples ended up with tango or paso doble as their style; the two who didn’t happened to be the only two couples who had ever been in the bottom two. Not sure if they were banking on those two being in the bottom two again or what, but it was just a bit of a strange coincidence to me.

As of last week, I was unsure as to what to expect as we edged closer to the finale; this week, I’m still not 100% sure, but at the very least the judges weren’t afraid to drop the hammer on some of those who weren’t up-to-snuff. I’m still wondering if we end up with a six-couple finale or an 11-week season – we still have (9) couples left now, with an impending double-elim this coming week; there’s been no mention of an additional double elimination in week 9, so I tend to think that will just be a single. That would leave us with a six-couple finale; however, given the current fluid state of affairs in pandemic tv scheduling, I think it’s possible the network might give us an extra week (since the show would still wrap before Thanksgiving), in which case another elimination (or a double) in week 10 could leave us with a five or four-couple finale, which seems a bit more manageable. Who should be in the finale? In terms of consistency, I think Kaitlyn, Nev, Johnny, & Justine deserve to be there; however, I think Nelly, Skai, and/or AJ could all potentially play spoiler to one of the four I mentioned making the finale. If the judges are still on their bullish*t, Chrishell could probably be in the mix as well…god, I hope she isn’t, but the bar is on the floor in terms of anything in 2020 turning out like it should.

So after what felt like an eternity of the judges gushing disingenuously over just-ok performances, they did a complete 180 and decided to go all in critiquing Monica’s dance this week – and honestly, I don’t think it was undeserved. As I’ve repeated ad infinitum since probably week 2 (and as some uppity Monica fans seem to forget when they accuse me of “hating” on Monica), Monica’s problem has never been her dancing; it’s in her performance-quality, or lack thereof. She can technically nail the steps, but completely fail on selling it to the point where I just tune out because it’s so dreadfully boring. I also felt like the tone of her performance this week was just totally wrong (although I tend to blame Val/TPTB for that): Nurse Ratched is a cold authoritarian, not a seductress. For someone that had no prior knowledge of source material, one might assume from Monica’s performance that the character is a femme fatale of sorts; but sex appeal is not part of Nurse Ratched’s arsenal – psychological manipulation and general bullying are more her forte. Then there was the matter of her costume giving me more Britney Spears’ naughty flight attendant in the “Toxic” video vibes than nurse vibes, and we’ve got a performance that just kinda fizzled, unfortunately. I guess the judges finally decided this week that they couldn’t protect Monica forever, and needed to focus on saving the really strong dancers (like Johnny, who fell into the bottom 2 last week) for the finale – so Monica got the chop. And I think Monica was cool with it – her comfort zone is behind the mat, directing her squad on their performance; I don’t think she ever quite got used to being the one actually performing.

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October 28, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 6 – Power Rankings

Just for the record – I really have no idea what I’m doing anymore 😛

I mean, I obviously know how to write, and I know how to look at dances and determine whether they are decent or not; I guess I mean the conclusions I’m drawing are basically a roll of the dice these days, because the results of this show aren’t really making much sense to me anymore. In what universe does an Olympic figure skater somehow tumble into the bottom two with a Superbowl champ, while reality stars with marginal dance skills end up safe??? Last night’s results would have been unheard of ten years ago on this show – hell, even three years ago on this show. Granted, Vernon was not as adept as the majority of the NFL players we’ve had on this show, and Johnny got RIDICULOUSLY low-balled on his score this week – but I guess the only conclusion I can reasonably draw is that not many people are actually voting (or voting consistently), and it’s causing the results to become unpredictable from time to time. There’s also the fact that you can now vote ten times PER COUPLE, per voting method, which I think is muddling things – where people used to have to put all their eggs in one basket, they can now put the same amount of eggs in multiple baskets; this only adds to the total number of points (and thus diminishes the power of each vote) and just seems to result in the needle not moving as much when you combine scores and votes. Add to this the fact that TPTB seem intent on keeping Monica (or Val) around despite a mediocre performance thus far, and I’m not sure what to make of things anymore. I feel like the “perpetual present” that the pandemic has left us all stuck in is seeping into every aspect of my life: it’s hard to think about what’s going to happen in the future, when each day just seems like an interminable NOW with no end in sight. Christ, this pandemic has made me nihilistic.

So we’re past the halfway point of the season, and we’ve eliminated 1/3 of the cast – so what type of narrative seems to be taking shape for the finale? Hard to say. For once, I don’t feel confident claiming any one person will for sure win – I tend to think Kaitlyn (and probably AJ, too – unless they fall into the bottom together) are likely going to get saved by the judges no matter what, but when it comes to winning…all bets are off. Will Nev make the finals? Maybe…maybe not. Nelly, Justina, and Jeannie are all big question marks for me, too – I think it’s equally possible that any of them make the finals or get eliminated just short of them. My gut says they can’t protect Monica forever, and if Skai keeps having off-weeks, I don’t think she sticks around, either. No idea what to make of Chrishell anymore, as it feels like Gleb could walk center stage and take a dump and still get glowing reviews for their routine. And is Johnny being set up as a shock elim in the coming weeks??? Could be…or last night could have been an anomaly. And despite Derek usually making the right call, my confidence in the judges this season choosing the correct couple when saving from the bottom two has waned – I tend to think they may be getting instructed to “make things interesting” from the control room, and may vote in a way that they wouldn’t normally. Hence, Carrie Ann’s (downright idiotic) choice to save Vernon & Peta over Johnny & Britt.

So Derek graced the DWTS stage for the first time in 3 years, and I daresay that was probably the only glimmer of hope DWTS has for a possible choreo Emmy nomination next summer – and given that perennial heavy-hitter SYTYCD did not air this year, it’s possible DWTS could eke out a nod along with some of the routines from World of Dance. Or who knows, maybe they won’t even bother to nominate anyone in that category – seems like a very 2020 outcome 😉 Loved this paso, and it felt like the culmination of all the years Derek spent using DWTS and the MOVE tours as a “test kitchen” for some of his wilder choreography ideas. Paso was always his favorite dance to choreograph, so the choice made sense; it was also nice to see how far Hayley has come in her ballroom and Latin technique, as some of her early days dabbling in it were a bit…shaky. I daresay her Latin technique bests Allison’s now, though, so if they ever went shopping for female pros again in the future (if there is one…), I think she’s a logical choice.

As most of us had predicted, Vernon left us this week – and while it was disappointing, I caught a bit of his GMA appearance this morning, and he seemed to have a very upbeat attitude about his elim, and was generally grateful for the experience. I think he had plateaued in terms of his dancing, too, so I don’t know that he would have fared well when they would have started doing 2+ dances per week. Glad he got to go out on a positive note, though – his cha-cha was a fun tribute to his grandpa and I think he had a lot of fun. Read more..

October 21, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 4 – Power Rankings

So what are we gonna call last night? “Special Dance That is Meaningful to Some of the Contestants” night, sponsored by The Backstreet Boys(TM)?

Honestly, without a unifying theme (and with Tyrant just repeating “special and emotional dances”), it felt a bit aimless last night – you had contestants like Skai and Anne giving very emotionally charged stories and performances, and then you had Monica and Nelly half-heartedly dancing along to songs they didn’t even seem to like. Should have just called it “Most Memorable Year” or “Personal Story” week and let that guide things.

So that aimlessness spilled over into the elimination, which we had plenty of time for, but which somehow still got royally FUBAR’d. While I agree with Heidi’s sentiment that Tyrant was marginally less annoying last night than in previous weeks, all that went out the window for me the minute she started screeching “My cards were wrong! It’s the control room’s fault!” when the big elimination gaffe was revealed. All I could think was “Bergeron would have never thrown the crew under the bus like that.” He would have made some cool, off-the-cuff quip about live television that made us all chuckle, and then moved right along with adjusting course to correct the error. And then once it was made clear that the correct bottom two were Anne and Keo and Monica and Val, she barked at the judges to hurry up an render a verdict, so she had more time to yap about 80s night as the credits rolled. If it wasn’t clear before, it’s abundantly clear now: Tyrant is only ever looking out for number 1.

So we lost Anne and Keo, and that was the first elimination this season that left me feeling disappointed. There was something so refreshing about Anne’s performances – she always seemed to commit fully, and just let her flag fly out on the floor. And she always hyped up Keo, which I appreciate 🙂 And while her story about getting blackballed for dating Ellen back in the day is absolutely heartbreaking, there’s another infuriating layer to the story that didn’t get mentioned: Weinstein actually exposed himself to her and demanded sex around the same time, and then blackballed her further when she rejected him. That poor woman couldn’t get a decent job in Hollywood for YEARS as a result of the one-two punch of the Ellen relationship fallout and Weinstein being Weinstein, unchecked. Overall, I’m glad she was on this season (and I’m glad she got to tell her story), but there were other couples I would have gladly sent home first…it is what it is. Read more..

October 6, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 3 – Power Rankings

What can I say about Disney night that I haven’t already said in season 28, season 27, season 25, etc.? Not much. It’s the same 2-hour long Disney commercial that it has always been, with dances (usually poorly) shoehorned to fit (overused) songs, and costumes that feel like plagiarized essays – “yeah, you can copy mine from last season, but change a few things so it’s not so obvious.” That much I kind of expected – but I’m also dealing with the added complication this season of still having TOO. DAMN. MANY. COUPLES. It’s enough of a mental load to remember them all at the end of the night, and on top of that, we’re still getting really truncated dances – which is beneficial to some (marginal dancers like Chrishell) while detrimental to others (decent dancers like Skai, who seems to take a few bars to really hit a stride). With 13 couples remaining, next week will basically feel like a regular premiere night, and we’re already in week 4. We’re gonna have to start trimming some fat (and quickly) if we want to get whittled down to a 4-couple finale before Thanksgiving.

Tyrant was still up to her usual “look at meeeeee!” claptrap with her Minnie Mouse ballgown and absurdly long wig, but dare I say she may have dialed things back a just teensy bit this week? At the very least, the judges seemed to get more time to critique, while we seemingly only had to endure one dumb Tyrant question posed to each couple instead of multiple, increasingly painful ones that the celebs struggled to answer eloquently (or diplomatically). Don’t get it twisted – this show is still much harder to endure than necessary, owing to Tyrant’s presence (and Bergeron’s absence); but this week felt fractionally less painful.  Think someone pulled rank and told her to pipe down after last week’s sh*tshow?

So “that b***h Carole Baskin” got sent packing this week, and I hope that means I don’t have to hear any more bitching about how upset some of you were that “Derek saved her!” last week. You guys do realize the judges collude on who to save/ditch, right? So even though it appeared that Derek “got the deciding vote”, the three of them had already decided who was staying and who was going, and it was just a matter of what order they revealed their votes in to maximize suspense. And Carole had to have more than one vote to stay, yet nobody seemed as upset with Carrie Ann as they were with Derek.  My god, I worry about the intelligence quotient of the voting public these days *facepalm*. Anywho, it was her time to go – and I think that’s why they handed her samba as her style this week to ensure it, as nearly no one nails that dance and even the good ones usually just barely flirt with proper technique.  Carole basically tiptoed carefully through her dance – no bounce, not much rhythm, but I will credit her with generally keeping in step with Pasha. And I think Carole may have been saved from complete embarassment when Tyrant hit her with this gem of a question: “So how does Pasha compare with the cats?” That’s like someone asking me how Mama Spence compares to the spreadsheets I use to make budgets at my 9-5. I dunno – I worry about both of them making dollars and sense? Da fuq. Is anyone rehearsing these questions with Tyrant before the show, or is she just improvising them on the fly???

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September 30, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 27, Week 8 – Power Rankings, Who Will Win?

Y’all, it’s been a week…hell, it’s been a season.  And if I’m being honest, this is one season that has felt like it has absolutely DRAGGGGGGED on – I’m not sure I’ve wanted a season to be over this badly since maybe season 11, when Bristol was sticking around like a bad rash. Strike that – season 14 was pretty bad, too, when William Levy was getting jammed down my throat every week. Season 20 wasn’t much better, given that it had been predetermined it was “Val’s season” from week 1 and it got monotonous pretty quickly. To put it plainly: I’m just plain ready for this season to be over, and have my life back for the next 5ish months. I’ve got plans in the pipeline 😉

So in the penultimate elim of the season (which was a double, thank goodness – a 5-person finale on a season where the finale is only 1 night is a bit much), we finally shook Grocery Joe loose (yassssssss) and also lost Juan-Note Pablo in the second “shocking” elim of the season.  Can’t say I was terribly upset about either one leaving us – Joe should have been gone in week 1, and was little more than a glorified weightlifting spotter in his dances on Monday night; Juan Pablo, while probably deserving of a spot in the finale, just never resonated with me as a person – and I apparently wasn’t alone, as he clearly wasn’t getting the votes to stay. I think it says something when we ALMOST get a rare show of vulnerability from Juan Pablo (talking about his mother beating cancer in his rehearsal package, and dedicating his dance to her), and then it was like “JK, I’mma still serve you macho Latin lover realness!” and he performed a dance that, while technically quite good, was little different than every other dance we got from him this season: all smolder and sexiness, and no vulnerability or emotion.  I will credit him for being (to my knowledge) the first and only real-live Argentinean to perform an Argentine tango on DWTS, but at the end of the day, I think he & Cheryl probably missed the mark a bit in the grand scheme of things – you have to be a good dancer to succeed on this show, but people also have to like you and care about you; and if you’re constantly serving the same bravado week after week, dance after dance, and not taking the time to show the viewers that you’re also human and have feelings, they’re probably going to tune you out after awhile, no matter how great your dancing is.

I’ve been getting quite a few questions about what I think the future of this show looks like, given the three-ring circus that this season has been. Unfortunately, I think it looks grim – can’t remember where I had this conversation, but Heidi, John, & I were talking recently about the future of the show, and either Heidi or John said “At this point, they’ve gotten what they wanted out of the show – they probably don’t really care what happens now, and will let the show continue its steady demise until they find something better to take its place.” Let’s face it: getting 25+ seasons out of a show where it stays a ratings juggernaut is not just good – it’s great.  Almost unheard of…so for DWTS to be taking a dive in season 27, it’s more than likely just the show running its course. Sure, there’s been some wonky stuff going on this season, but I’d chalk a lot of that up to overall viewership being down and less of a normalizing influence in the voting as a result; I don’t think it’s so much that the SHOW has changed, it’s the AUDIENCE moving on.  I have often found myself saying “I just want to see something I haven’t seen before!” for several seasons now – be it a new pro, some more “out there” choreographic risks, an unexpected celeb, etc. I can’t imagine I’m alone in that desire.  Given that the show has basically already called several audibles this season (rearranging the elimination schedule, changing the original plan for a 5-couple finale, and cutting the finale down to 1 night), I don’t think ABC would have any qualms cancelling a prospective spring season if it came down to it – really, the only evidence we have of a spring season in 2019 is an interview (which I haven’t seen myself) where Sharna apparently said she had “signed on for several more seasons, including the spring one”; given that the pros contracts are pretty open-ended, and being “on contract” just means you must avail yourself if they need you, I don’t think we can safely assume there’s going to be a spring season, just that Sharna is available for it if there is one. And someone also pointed out to me that the winter tour has now been extended through early March – if there was going to be a regular-length spring season, the cast would have already been announced at that point, and the couples rehearsing. At this point, I’m dubious that there’s going to be a spring season at all, but if there is, I think the best we can hope for is a shortened one, a la season 26. I’d personally be just fine with no spring season, as I’m going to be tripled up on my classes by that point and also job hunting out west. DWTS can come back in the fall, when I’m done with school, hopefully settled into my new digs in Denver, and with a lot more free time on my hands 😉 Read more..

November 16, 2018 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 27, Week 7 – Power Rankings

Welcome to season 27, where the decent dancers are in perpetual danger, and the more mediocre you are, the greater the likelihood you’ll stick around. Guys – this is not the dance show I fell in love with 13 years ago. This season is a strange, bastardized caricature of it – and that’s why this post has been hard to write.  It’s also been hard to try and make sense of the nonsense of this season in general, and I feel worthless when some of you come to me asking what to make of [insert nonsense here] or [insert wonky scoring here], and I’m not able to give you an intelligent explanation for it…because I don’t have one. It still tickles me that so many of you give a damn about what I write,  after all these years, and value my thoughts on this show. But this time around, I just don’t know what to tell you, other than “Yep, this season sucks.” I fear we’re possibly witnessing the death throes of DWTS – all good things must come to an end, I guess, and this show has paid the dividends for 13 years now, which is impressive and quite a bit longer than I thought it would be on the air. Just stinks that it’s going out in such an inauspicious way 🙁

It’s beyond me why reality competition shows even bother doing “country night” as a theme anymore – it only seems to appeal to a small subset of the audience, the music is often pretty cringe-y, and the attire is…questionable. Monday night’s show was no different – the opener was pretty sloppy, and even the guest singers seemed a bit bewildered and not quite sure what to do.  Additionally, I feel like the couples that got saddled dancing to songs performed live by the artists took a bit of a hit, as their choreography had to accommodate intermittent pans to the singer for their obligatory face time.  At the end of the night, I remembered very little, and cared even less about “country night”. Put it to bed, ABC.

As for who we lost this – John & DeMarcus were 2/3 of my favorite guys this season, and them getting taken out in one sweep was gutting. I would have GLADLY traded Joe, Bobby, Alexis, AND Juan Pablo if it meant keeping the two of them in the competition. I ended up enjoying John far more than I thought I would – he was actually a decent dancer, had great musicality, got along great with Emma, was excited to be there, had a nice journey, and was generally a likable, humble guy.  Unfortunately, I think the writing was on the wall where he was concerned – we saw it coming last week, and TPTB seemed to have decided his time was up. Then there’s DeMarcus – someone I thought for sure we’d see in the in the finale.  Not entirely sure what happened here – he was always one of the better male contestants, and was never a bad dancer in the same way that both Bobby & Joe are; he was also extremely likable and genuine, and vibed well with Lindsay.   Part of me thinks he just got lost in the shuffle between the general (but memorable) stink of Joe & Bobby, the three-ring circus of the Alanis/Alexan (have they decided on their ship name yet?) showmance, the gushing over Juan Pablo, and both Milo & Evanna having memorable journeys; part of the blame for that lies with the judges and their more middle-of-the-road scoring and critiques, which were usually unnecessarily tough on De. Then there’s also the small matter of his finger injury back in week 3 – as minor as it may have seemed in the grand scheme of things, it was as if the moment DeMarcus realized his finger was injured, sh*t got real.  I mentioned to someone on Twitter, but if you re-watch the video of it happening, there was a noticeable shift in his demeanor – he went from “Oh hell yeah!!!” to “Oh sh*t, this is bad!” in .3 seconds.  And part of me thinks he was never really able to shake it off totally – every dance from that moment on seemed a tad cautious and tentative. Who knows – regardless, I don’t think he or Lindsay deserved to go home, and on any other season, he probably would have had a free pass to the finale.  And the finale has suffered in quality with the lost off both John AND DeMarcus 🙁 Read more..

November 9, 2018 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 27, Week 6 – Power Rankings

Last night’s episode of Nightmare on Sesame Street was brought to you by the morbid/nonsensical theme and that “fake-like-you-broke their neck” move that everyone seemed to be doing.  Second week in a row I’m left feeling pretty “meh” on the whole – I think the kids on Juniors put on a far better Halloween show this week, and they taped theirs way back in August. Themes were a bit of a mess, and the only routines I felt knocked it out of the park were Milo & Witney’s contemporary and the pro teaser dance for the tour. Then again, I think there’s only two Halloween week routines in DWTS history that have really wowed me: Hinch & Jenna’s Suicide Squad Viennese waltz, and Frankie & Witney’s stalker-themed contemporary. No worries – not the last time you’ll hear me hold those two dances up for comparison in these rankings 😉

Seeing a lot of comments/concerns about the running order the past two weeks in particular, and I’ll say this: I think TPTB may have finally gotten hip to the fact that the viewers have totally figured out the patterns in running order, and can predict things pretty well based on that; thus, I think they’re scrambling things up a bit more this season, hence some pretty nonsensical running order positions. Funny how DeMarcus went from dancing last, middle of the show, and first (all the key positions) within the first few weeks of the show, but has gotten stuck in doom positions for the past two weeks; Milo also went from dancing in the doom spots the first few weeks, to either opening or closing the show the past two weeks. And I tend not to think their voting numbers have changed drastically in those times, so I doubt it’s necessarily and indicator of their success, and is more just TPTB throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.  Likewise, Alexis’ running order has been all over the place, too, and she still seems to end up in jeopardy every week. Long story short: I don’t think the running order means much this season. Read more..

October 30, 2018 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.